Merlin the Magnificent

This is a short story for a contest titled 'Magic with a cliffhanger'

This is a short story for the contest  'Magic with a cliffhanger'

The young magician had waited all day for his audition on Britain’s Got Talent.

He arrived at the concert hall in London at 7am, even though the doors did not open until 9am. Being two hours early however did not put him at the front of the queue, and the smile of anticipation turned into a scowl when he saw the crowd around the entrance. Hundreds of contestants, both young and old, and boy did they look weird.

Jimmy came from a normal family, and lived in a normal street with other normal people. Looking at this group of strangely dresses misfits, normal did not have any part in their lives.

His first inclination had been to turn away and get the bus back home, but his determination to show his true talent to the obnoxious Simon Cowell helped him overcome his disgust at what he saw in front of him.

He forced himself to join the disorganised mob that he deemed an excuse for a queue and after a few minutes, he found himself wedged between an overweight middle-aged woman and an extremely tall teenager. The woman wore a bright yellow suit with red buttons, and volunteered the information that she had always wanted to run away to the circus to become a clown. Jimmy nodded and gave her a weak smile, a smile that masked his silent opinion that the woman was crazy. Fortunately, the tall teenager kept his ambitions to himself, though the fact he wore a frogman’s outfit did have Jimmy wondering.

When the doors opened a man holding a megaphone came out and bellowed a welcome to the rabble, and he tried to create some sort of order to the aforementioned queue. His attempt failed and as that was the last Jimmy heard of him, he could only assume the man went down at the weight of the pressing mob.

Eventually Jimmy obtained a ticket with the number 304 written on it in bold felt-tipped pen. “304” thought Jimmy, “three hundred and ruddy four, I'll be here hours”.

And it did take hours, hours of purgatory before his number came to the top of the list, hours surrounded by the strangest and most pathetic people that Jimmy had ever met.

Minutes later introductions were made to the two grinning imbeciles that he had seen many times before on the television screen on what seemed like every Saturday evening since he had been born. Suddenly there was a camera in his face as they asked him about props and music. Jimmy shook his head and answered the smiling duo, “I don’t need anything, just my wand and this black cloth”

Ant and Dec ushered the young magician onto the stage.

Jimmy was momentarily stunned at the size of the audience, and more so at the noise they made.

Pulling his thoughts together and taking a deep breath Jimmy walked to the centre of the stage and stood in front of the microphone.

“Hello, what’s your name?” asked one of the female judges.

“My name is Jimmy,” answered the young magician.

“And what are you going to do for us today?”

“I am going to make Simon disappear”

The crowd roared with laughter, the noise was quite overwhelming and Jimmy stepped back a few feet feeling quite dizzy.

Simon Cowell got to his feet waving his hands at the audience and spoke to Jimmy.

“OK, young Merlin, it seems like this unruly mob want to see your trick. Do you want me to come on stage, or are you going to magic me away from there”.

Jimmy regained his composure when he heard Simon’s pleasant voice, and saw his beaming smile.

“Can you come up here please,” said Jimmy.

Simon walked up the steps onto the stage and stood before Jimmy.

Jimmy unfolded the black cloth that he had been holding, it became bigger and bigger as it unfolded and the crowd roared with yet more laughter.

The young magician asked Simon to cover himself in the cloth, which he did without objection.

The crowd roared some more as they heard Simon shout out. “Hurry up Jimmy, I can’t see anything from under this cloth, and I'm scared of the dark”.

Jimmy took out his wand and waved it around while he mumbled a few well-chosen mystical words.

“Hubble, bubble, away from here, obnoxious Simon disappear”

Jimmy tapped the black cloth that was completely covering the self-professed “biggest man in show business”.

The black cloth crumpled to the stage in a small pile as the cheers and screams grew louder as the audience witnessed the disappearance of Simon.

Jimmy knelt down and refolded the black cloth as Ant and Dec strolled onto the stage both clapping in unison.

“Brilliant,” said Ant.

“Where is he”, said Dec.

“Gone” replied Jimmy...

as he walked off stage.

Author's Note

Please comment... and share if you enjoyed the story.